


i'm not sorry there's nothing to say

by foxgloved



Category: Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types, Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Coming Out, F/F, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Kissing, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Pining, mentioned alec/magnus - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-04
Updated: 2016-04-04
Packaged: 2018-05-31 03:39:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6453910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxgloved/pseuds/foxgloved
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Kiss me.” Isabelle's eyes have gone wide, her skin paled. Her hands seize Clary's shoulders, tense and red-knuckled where they bunch in Clary's shirt, and Clary blinks, heat rushing into her face.</p><p>“What?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	i'm not sorry there's nothing to say

**Author's Note:**

> title - 'your ex-lover is dead' by stars. for an ask meme, it got... way out of hand? shit???
> 
> so have some girls kissing and clary is lowkey me and also fake dating b/c i LoVE fake dating aus (says my other fake relationship fic? that is also human au clary? with a plot suspiciously similar to this?) and i'm really gay holy shit. tw for brief homophobia (maryse).

“Kiss me.” Isabelle's eyes have gone wide, her skin paled. Her hands seize Clary's shoulders, tense and red-knuckled where they bunch in Clary's shirt, and Clary blinks, heat rushing into her face.

“What?” she asks, a low hiss; any other time she'd accept without question but Isabelle's panicked, she can tell just looking at her, and that doesn't bode well for the pining she's been doing. (God, she needs to stop spending so much time around Simon. He's a bad influence on her.)

“Just _do it_ ,” says Isabelle, already reeling her up.

Clary obliges, and laces her own fingers behind Isabelle's neck. They meet in the middle: in a fiery collision, Isabelle kissing with something that's almost _anger_ along with the skittering nerves that Clary can feel beating hard against both their chests. They're chest-to-chest and the heat, the little bit of teeth but their mouths both ultimately closed—this is what Clary's been craving for, hell, she doesn't know, but it feels _nice_. Isabelle's hands clutch at her, desperate, and Clary doesn't want to amp up her own kissing skills when she's only made out with one person before but is Isabelle starting to _wilt_ against her? If anything, her already harsh grip is tightening.

_Well, then._

It's over all too soon—they jump apart with the shocked shout of “ISABELLE!” behind them, and Clary remembers their setting when voices around them startle to a halt and color bursts when she opens her eyes. A party. One run by Isabelle's mother, Maryse, who Clary'd met once and who'd been uptight and stiff, frigidly business-like. Isabelle'd invited her because her brothers were out of town and she didn't have anyone to “suffer through it with”. Not that Clary had planned on anything like this happening, but it seems there was more to that casual invite than Isabelle had let on.

“Mother,” Isabelle says, with an indignant sniff. Her lipstick's smeared, and Clary thinks, _did_ I _do that?_ She stands up a couple inches straighter—already towering over Clary in her four-inch heels (really, did she _live_ to make Clary's life hell?), and it's a strong contrast to that time before Clary'd met Maryse and seen Isabelle shrink into herself at the sight. “Sorry. Have I introduced you to my girlfriend, Cl—”

“No,” Maryse says, eyes harsh in the light. Conversations start to strike up again, though quieter and with a more cautious undertone. Clary doubts half the people in the room _know_ Maryse Lightwood, or even her name. “You most certainly have not.”

Maryse holds out a hand, but her wrist is crooked to the side, and shaking just the slightest bit. Her eyebrow and jaw twitch in some uncanny unison, her lip curled in distaste.

“We've met,” Clary says, eyeing the hand like it's a bomb before she takes it. Maryse's skin is cool to the touch. _Cold hands, cold heart,_ Clary thinks, and has to choke back a smile. “I just wasn't Izzy's girlfriend then.”

“Clarissa Fray,” Maryse says. Clary shivers and lurches back—there's something in the brisk tone of her voice and the furious lines of her face and shoulders that gives her pause, and a flashing light in her brain that screams _DANGER! DANGER! DANGER!_ Maryse's eyes leave her, sharply drifting to Isabelle.

Isabelle, who looks more beautiful (more confident, but those are synonyms in whatever thesaurus exists in Clary's head) than Clary's ever seen, she thinks. All illuminated by the lights around them, ink-black hair tugged back into the ponytail Clary'd helped her with before they'd left their two-bedroom apartment for this shitshow. Her chin's tilted up, hands on her hips in a challenging stance, and... she doesn't look afraid of her mother, for once.

Clary pictures this as a full-length portrait in an art gallery someday, her arm tucked around Isabelle's waist as she beams at all the viewers who gaze in awe at the woman in the painting. She shakes her head, short enough that no one will notice it, and tells herself she's getting _way_ ahead of herself before she can envision rings in this future universe where her arm is around Isabelle's waist.

“Isabelle, may we speak in private?” Maryse asks, drawing Clary back to the harsh present.

Isabelle crooks her arm into Clary's, making Clary choke on the spit in her own damn lungs and her heart stop beating for one still moment. “Whatever you have to say,” Isabelle says, clear and dangerous and _amazing_ , “you can say it in front of Clary.”

“I don't approve of this _behavior_.” Seems Maryse has no qualms about _that_. Her glare is just as meant for Clary as it is Isabelle, and it darts over to her for a second. “You know that, Isabelle, what with all that your brother's done recently—”

Isabelle bristles, her elbow in Clary's pressing almost hard enough to break something. “My brother,” she snaps, “is not in the room and can't defend himself. My brother is a goddamned hero, you know that? He gave me all the bravery I needed to stand here with Clary and tell you she's my _girlfriend_ , not my best friend. I'm not going to marry some man three times my age because it's a good business opportunity for you—I'm not going on any more of your shitty blind dates, you hear me?” She's drawn all the attention of the room, with flushed cheeks and anger sparking in her eyes—and she looks radiant as she does it, spitting out her words like they're something bad she's eaten. “Goodnight, Mother. I came here because I hoped you'd _recovered_ from Alec's 'shocking behavior', but it seems you're just a selfish bitch like you always have been.”

She jolts Clary to the side, before regret sinks into her face and she pulls away, biting her lip as her eyelashes fan over her cheeks. With such tension written in her back that Clary expects steam to be trailing after her, she marches from the struck-silent room, heels clicking all the way.

Clary fixes Maryse, who appears to be shell-shocked, with one last scalding look before she follows.

Isabelle's sitting in the car, keys plugged into the ignition, when Clary gets outside, shivering in the cold. (She should've grabbed a jacket, she realizes—and Isabelle'd nagged her about that, too, and shrugged and said _Suit yourself_ when Clary'd said _I'll be fine_.) She's staring at the steering wheel, hands flat in her lap, and barely blinks when Clary climbs in on the passenger side and straps herself in.

“So,” Clary says, after five minutes of neither pulling out of the parking lot nor saying a single word.

“So,” Isabelle repeats. She looks up, and meets Clary's eyes—some of the earlier ire still is settling in her gaze, but most is replaced with soft guilt. “That was—a thing. I'm sorry, Clary. I shouldn't have dragged you into it—you don't have to be involved in my family drama.”

“I'm your girlfriend, right?” Clary grins, and reaches for Isabelle's wrist; she's surprised when she doesn't jerk away. “I kind of have to. Besides, you told me all about what happened for Alec.” He'd, after years of hiding his sexuality from his family, come out at a family reunion with everyone with even a drop of Lightwood blood—and by bringing his boyfriend along, introducing him as a “friend”, and kissing him right when they'd been about to bless the food with some outrageously Christian round of prayer. Maryse and Robert (divorced but on good terms) refuse to talk to him, somewhere overseas with his boyfriend's family or wherever he is now. (He's never liked Clary, and she's _meh_ about him, but she's glad he gets to be happy now.)

“I suppose,” Isabelle says. A small smile settles across her face, and she tugs on Clary's fingers with her other hand; locks them together. “You know, um. I might've had ulterior motives in kissing you? I mean, part of it was not wanting to hide from my mother anymore, and freaking her and all her rich friends out, but.”

“Really?” Clary's heart might be on overdrive. She imagines her obituary: _Clarissa Adele Fray, twenty-two, died of cardiac arrest after best friend and secret crush suggested her feelings might be returned._ “Well, then.”

“Yeah,” Isabelle says, and shifts in her seat. She pulls her hands away from Clary's, reaching across the seats—she isn't strapped in, and so crawls over onto Clary's lap, their lips a breath apart. “I love you,” she says, locking her arms around Clary's neck. She smells like cherry blossoms— _Clary's_ cherry blossom perfume. The thought has her shuddering, and not from the cold this time. “You know that, right?”

Clary nods. She's shaking, but—“I love you, too, Izzy.”

And leans up to kiss her.

**Author's Note:**

> [AYYYYYYY](http://autisticgarcia.tumblr.com)


End file.
